Hello. I just can't make the jump from
pretty good to
great in my work (maybe “decent to good” would be more accurate). I can create clear shapes, reasonably smooth curves, optical correction, consistent weights and shapes, and all of that basic stuff, but I just can’t create a font that actually
works. Plenty of classic faces violate these tenets (sometimes egregiously so), yet have a certain... resonance? flow? that mine lack. Clearly, there is more than mechanics going on. I just can’t figure out what it is!
I have a few sample of my work in the
Critiques section (
here and
here especially), but I think this is more a matter of philosophy than technique, and I want this discussion to be about more than just my work: ideally, it will benefit others. In other words, I hope I’ve chosen the right category!
Comments
Too expand on Andreas’ comment, having a really clear vision, mission for what you are trying to accomplish is helpful. Consider having a brief for your type design. Here are some thoughts on that:
https://www.quora.com/What-does-a-typical-brief-for-a-new-typeface-look-like
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/02/a-type-design-brief-arabic-typography-calligraphy/
And practise some calligraphy.
Although you can’t replace practice, education can be an immensely time-effective leg up. I list all the major English-language programs here: http://www.thomasphinney.com/type-design-resources/
You can add Type@Cooper West in San Francisco, CA, USA, a collaboration between Cooper Union and Letterform Archive, to the list. The first term of their first extended program just finished. Similar to the NYC certificate program.
http://coopertype.org/west
Some great first efforts:
Baskerville
Futura
Perpetua
Scala
Thesis
When there is a change in technology, there is an opportunity for newcomers and outsiders to make a fresh, definitive mark.
What is the new technology now, that opens the door for tiros?
Something similar can be said for Gill’s Perpetua. The project was shepherded by Morison, the first punches cut by Malin, and then the Monotype Drawing Office created the final product. There is a lot of Gill in there, to be sure. But Perpetua is a great “first effort” because of Malin and the TDO, too. It was not a “first effort” for either of those parties.
Like Bernhard, Gill had already collected significant experience as a letterer before designing Perpetua. Martin Majoor and Luc(as) de Groot were not what I would call “newbies” either, at least when it comes to the drawing of letters, when they designed Scala and Thesis, respectively.
Baskerville also was an experienced letterer before he designed type and began printing. And his type was cut by an experienced punchcutter, too. Would Baskerville’s types have been so great if he had not found a punchcutter who could interpret what he wanted?
Cheltenham: also produced by a type foundry.
Finally, aside from maybe Scala and Thesis, I don’t think that the other typefaces were made in times of significant technological change. Baskerville’s types were cast from matrices struck by steel punches, a technique that was already 300 years old by the time he came to printing. Isn’t Baskerville known for his developments & improvements in paper-making and ink? That isn’t type. Cheltenham, Bernhard Antiqua, and Futura were – as I write above – produced by foundries who had already been in the game for decades by the time these types were made (and had already released many successful typefaces, both in terms of critical opinion of the time as well as from a sales point of view). The Monotype Corporation in the UK had already been making type for, what, about two decades before they produced Perpetua? So I would not really call Monotype typesetting “new” by that time, either. Perhaps it was still “new” when they made Plantin or Imprint, but Perpetua?!
Now, this statement of yours: “there is an opportunity for newcomers and outsiders to make a fresh, definitive mark.” Well, if you would change it to: “There is always an opportunity for newcomers and outsiders to make a fresh, definitive mark.” well, then I would agree with it! But please do not try and tie it to incorrect notions of technological changes.
A good punchcutter always comes in handy.
Yes, I said almost every great typeface. Not every one.
But still, I am with Dan: a lot of those typefaces you named would not likely have been great without the major involvement of others. We know this with utter certainty with Futura, because we can see Renner’s original drawings. While the concepts were interesting, the execution was crap and useless. It took the Bauer staff to make his ideas into something useful.
You could have added Sabon to your list. But of course Tschichold had decades of experience as a typographer and book designer before he tried to design a typeface.
I also link to a Wikipedia list that does include such classes, btw.
Also, I could not find a specific listing for your course(s), online. Do you have a link?
Ah, now that is a fine thing that I am going to go add right now.
But those were nonetheless first typefaces by the people universally credited with their design, which is not their draughtspersons or punchcutters.
What I found interesting was that the originality Baskerville et al brought to bear on the subject was not just that they were fresh to the process of type design, but that there was something new or different in technics which their designs addressed.
Baskerville: smoother paper (also perhaps blacker ink, harder metal).
Cheltenham: Working from engineering drawings, hence scalable micro-details.
Perpetua: Not so much the novelty of Monotype’s drawing office, but rather Morison’s idea that it could be used for epigraphic purposes, translating Gill’s stone-carved letters to type.
Similarly, Bernhard’s Antiqua transitioned a fashionable distress of lettering, which had appeared in his posters (and those of Bradley and the Beggarstaffs), to type.
So I would say that for Michael to make a great typeface, it’s not enough just to work within the genre of bezier-drawn classic serif styles, which has been pretty much mined out these past 25 years, but some originality could be accessed by considering new things that font-making software can do, or transitioning lettering from other media.
In other words, originality is a requirement of greatness, as much as refinement, and certainly more accessible to a newcomer.
Perhaps an interesting place to start would be with a new tool, such as featured by Ofir Shavit here on Type Drawers: http://typedrawers.com/discussion/comment/19201/
I also have a hunch that some people have more of an eye for (or interest in) drawing a set of interesting/beautiful shapes, and others (fewer) are better at making it feel coherent and convincing as texture, and it’s when you combine both you potentially get something that’s really good.
On the other hand, what Chris and Andreas said. I do think "Design a type that you would like to see" is an excellent rule. I also think it's the approach most likely to produce valuable contributions. But "Design what you'd like to see" doesn't mean "design something no one's ever seen."
But wasn’t it De Groot’s first published typeface?
Further on Thesis, not to over-emphasize technological determinism (and as I understand it, Thesis exemplifies The Stroke), but didn’t interpolation—’tweening—play a large role in the development of the typeface? Not just the availablility of a large number of weights and styles, but the mathematical disposition of weights.
This is what I’m trying to get a handle on, the idea that new technical capabilities can be exploited by designers to “get in first” and create definitive, and hence “great” typefaces.
IMO, learning a skill in a conventional manner can seriously hamper a person’s ability to do really original work (with which I equate the “great font” that is the subject of this thread). It creates a rut, a modus operandi, a conventional semantic groove that is hard to escape.
It may be necessary to put in 1,000 hrs somewhere along the line, but on the other hand, plodding towards greatness doesn’t entirely ring true.
I'm sure there are many designers or "regular people" that can bring their talent and (naive) brilliance to type design with the reduction of the massive amount of work involved in the process. I believe it can have a most positive influence over professionals work as well, not to mention the educative benefits (@James Montalbano a student can create a geometric typeface from scratches in 1-2 hours of work with Fontark, in 3 hours he'll understand almost all there is to know about why it doesn't work. In 5, he might come up with a cool idea?)
We've started a month long Hebrew type design course (in a Facebook group) this week (Monday), and I have decided to start a fresh new design along with the students, here are few shots of it during only several hours of work...
But it doesn't sum to the time factor, I believe it only starts there.
I believe one cannot consider type design as separate from its intended use and, therefore, one has to judge text types separately from all others. A great text type has to be something greater than the sum of its parts, to the extent that its spacing is as important as the design of its characters. What types will work well for text in one technology might not work as well in another. Cultural expectations and fashion trends play a role, too, such as when the style turned from Old Style to Modern in the 19th century and back to Old Style in the 20th.
Another matter: Ofir, why are your students using Latin punctuation with their designs? While it is true that neither the period nor the comma existed in traditional Hebrew, they have been part of it since the advent of Modern Hebrew in the 19th century. (See, for example, the poems of Nahman Hayim Bialik.) Various attempts to incorporate those punctuation marks go back to the 17th century.
Maybe somewhat off-topic but I've always found great that Christian Schwartz shows early work on his website. Seeing such evolution is much more interesting and inspiring than discussing great first typefaces. Especially when it is hard to tell what attempts were never released.